The Amish Wife: Unraveling the Lies, Secrets, and Conspiracy that Let a Killer Go Free

Full disclosure: I am not a true crime devotee. The extent of my experience with this popular genre is watching “Only Murders in the Building.” So from my perspective this kind of “detective work” and writing seems to draw the quirky, eccentric, slightly (or more) weird folks who love rabbit holes. I’m not saying this is what Gregg Olsen is doing here. He obviously has more creditability in this area than most true crime writers. That said, if you’re looking for a Perry Mason-type book with the “ah hah!” moment at the end, you won’t get it, and that, it seems to me is a big flaw in this book. If we take Gregg Olsen at his word, he had impactful “new” information that he begged his editor to let him include in this show more book, but he would have needed more time beyond his editor’s deadline to include it. His editor was adamant about wrapping up the project. Olsen considered playing the “I’m an important writer who has made millions of dollars for you” card to get more time but apparently didn’t. Can you imagine Stephen King’s editor telling him, “Wrap it up, King. This thing is going to press with or without your new information”? Another flaw, I thought was I found The Amish Wife pretty hard to follow mainly because of the plethora of characters in the story. Olsen does his best to give review information when a characters hasn’t been mentioned in a while, but it still made the story hard to follow. Olsen, however, has be be given credit for his detective work throughout the story, especially when he is dealing with a community as secretive as the Amish. He and his assistant are to be commended for that. Was the book worth my while? Probably. Would I choose it again or a book like it? Probably not. But in fairness to Olsen, this is a niche genre with a devoted following, and I’m sure those folks eat it up. So, help yourself if you’re part of that quirky crowd. show less

I did not read Abandoned Prayers: The Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession and Amish Secrets, which this is a sequel to. Olsen covers enough of the case he is revisiting that I do not think it is strictly required. What is here is revisiting contacts and suspects of heinous murders and principals after decades. Amish life and hidden homosexual lifestyles combine in a disturbing re-investigation of the crimes and their coverups.

The Amish Wife was published on January 1, 2024 and I bought a copy for the Calendar of Crime Challenge. It is not fiction as I had originally thought but rather is a true crime story. In this book author Gregg Olsen solves a crime that took place among the Amish in 1977. After 2 or 3 pages I recognized the plot. A movie had been made about this crime in 2019, The Amish Serial Killer. After reading 100 pages I decided to watch the movie again because it was fantastic. Lo and behold our author Gregg Olsen is one of the narrators of the show. In the book at hand, Olsen reveals the conspiracy that kept this crime a secret for forty-five years.

The publisher's summary: Pregnant wife and mother Ida Stutzman perished during a barn fire in an show more Ohio Amish community. The coroner’s report stated that she died of natural causes. Ida’s husband, Eli, was never considered a suspect. When Eli eventually rejected the faith and took his son Danny with him, murder followed. The dubious circumstances of the tragic blaze were willfully ignored and Eli’s shifting narratives were disregarded. Could Eli’s subsequent cross-country journey of death, including that of his own son, have been prevented if just one person came forward with what they knew about the real Eli Stutzman? These questions haunted Gregg Olsen and Ida’s brother Daniel Gingerich for decades. At Daniel’s urging, Olsen now returns to Amish Country and to Eli’s crimes first exposed in Olsen’s Abandoned Prayers, one of which has remained a mystery until now. With the help of aging witnesses and shocking long-buried letters, Olsen finally uncovers the disturbing truth about Ida’s murder.

I enjoyed the first half of the book but became bored in later chapters. The reason for the conspiracy of silence was already given by this point in the story, although the author gave more details about it throughout the book. The movie I watched addressed this reason so it was not news for me. I did not read Olsen’s first book about the murder so I cannot say whether or not he has given updated information in this book.

The title is misleading in that we don't read about Ida. It's about her husband, his friends and local law enforcement. We see all three covering up what they know about Ida’s death. It would be nice to have more information about her. Even the movie wasn't completely about her. It was about the death of her son Danny, the so-called little boy blue in the press. As a true crime story the death of Ida and Danny is a compelling one. I am not sure The Amish Wife is the best retelling of their story.. show less

This was a First Reads pick based mainly on the fact that I'd read another title by this author in the past. (I believe it was "If You Tell".) This book seems to be an addition to a different previous title of his. I did not realize until now that this author is known for true crime.

The central question in this book is Ida Stutzman: was she murdered and if so, did her husband do it and why?

I'm not sure enough definitive evidence was found by the time this book was due for publication--though not for lack of trying on the author's part.

This book is very, very, graphic. It tells the story of an serial killer Amish man who killed his wife and set his barn on fire. This could be called a companion book to the author's book "Little Boy Blue" about the son of the man. Either book; however, could be read as a stand alone.

I could not finish this. It was repetitive and dull for me, but that is probably because I did not read the first book about this case.

The biggest take away from this book is the fact that people who know facts of truth, but are not willing to tell the truth cannot stop evil from happening. The truth successfully!